


oh warmonger, is your world so empty?

by EternalEclipse



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Kitsune Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Multi, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Pre-Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but it's left its mark, mild body dysphoria, re: getting shoved into a body that's not quite yours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25520845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalEclipse/pseuds/EternalEclipse
Summary: When is a door not a door? Having opened the door and walked through, only to find that it had closed behind him, Stiles can’t really be sure anymore. The nogitsune may be gone, but his father’s in the hospital, Scott won't talk to him, and his skin isn’t his skin. If it was, it wouldn’t have a soulmark on its stomach, thankfully inert but large and distracting.Luckily for him, though: pack doesn’t let pack recover alone.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski & Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 3
Kudos: 185





	oh warmonger, is your world so empty?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raven_is_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_is_blue/gifts).



The hospital was even more bustling than it had been in the last...however long it had been. He’d lost track when he realized his watch had gotten broken at some point during all the scuffles. Stiles didn’t even have a seat to fall asleep uncomfortably on while he waited to see if anyone would survive the massacre at the station. The nogitsune had been dead maybe three hours, and that that wasn’t long enough for some of the lifesaving surgeries from attacks it had commanded didn’t speak well to odds of survival, except that it meant they weren’t done trying.

It would hit him at some point, that these people who’d loved him his whole life weren’t there anymore. That his father might not be there anymore. It hadn’t yet. It was hard to tell if the emotional disconnect was a remnant of the Void, twisted or otherwise, or if he’d just been through enough in the last weeks to be numb.

Nobody kicked him out even as visiting hours ended. He wondered if the wide berth was because they knew who his father was and who he was, or if word of either the nogitsune’s appearance or his stay in Eichen had gotten around. Either way, he was left to pillow his head in his arms in a waiting room corner, startling whenever scrubs or a lab coat brushed too close.

There wasn’t anyone he could call. Once, he’d have trusted Scott to pick up his calls. Except Scott had ignored him when the Kanima had trapped him and Derek, and again when Gerard had come after him. Plus Kira had had her big moment, so he had even less of a chance than usual at prying him away from his latest girl obsession. At least Kira was sweeter than her mother, though Stiles had long odds on that one lasting. She was too smart to stay.

He and Lydia trusted each other these days, and she might even tell him if she felt her throat tickling with a scream, but someone with his face had just ordered and enacted the death of her new boyfriend. Best let that one sit for a while.

Aside from that, who did he have? His dad was injured. He’d never call an Argent unless there was a threat he needed them for, and he’d gotten Allison killed too. Derek Hale probably wouldn’t pick up, reverting back to an ‘ignore the fragile human’ routine that got old very quickly after the newest threat disappeared. And Peter Hale? He wasn’t quite _that_ desperate.

Although that apparently wasn’t up to him. He got kicked out of the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, since he still couldn’t see his dad and they needed to clean up. He ended up sitting outside the hospital in the dark, unable to pluck up the care to drive home. He’d given all he had, and now he was crashing, alone, in the dim light filtering through the windows behind him. Not the worst way to die, out here in the nothing. At least it wouldn’t take anyone with him this time.

He froze at the sudden burst of pain in his left shoulder. He groped at it until he dislodged a wooden dart whose tip glistened with a few beads of blood. Biting down on a curse, he fumbled for something to press onto the wound and looked in the direction the dart had come from. The latter was of no use—his vision was human-poor and the lighting was odd.

Normally, this would trigger some kind of reaction, fight or flight, but neither seemed to come to hand. He was exhausted enough to think twice about driving even if he’d had his car, and more likely to just trip and fall on his face if he tried to stand up. Nor did he have his usual bevy of weapons on him—the nogitsune either hadn’t seen fit to provide them with his shiny new body, or more likely hadn’t bothered put them on in the first place.

Just as Stiles had acquiesced to dying for real this time a figure moved into a lit part of the parking lot. Four familiar silhouettes turned into two as he forced himself to focus.

“Are you satisfied that it’s gone?” Derek Hale asked, tense.

Chris Argent hummed, looking over at the dart in Stiles’ hand. He even went so far as to come up to him and push aside his sleeve before turning back to address Derek. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.” Stiles watched as he adjusted something in a pocket and turned away, heading back into the darkness, before refocusing on Derek, who was walking up to him.

Stiles didn’t say anything as he approached, or even after Derek took a seat next to him. Derek didn’t either. Their relationship had gotten past the ‘presuming you have personal boundaries’ mark half a dozen life threatening menaces ago, and Stiles was too exhausted to care anyway. A light flickered further in the lot, turning off for a second before turning on brighter, and the shadows it cast felt appropriately dramatic unto the mood of the moment.

It was several long minutes before Derek broke the strange silence. “It’s not your fault they’re dead.”

Stiles didn’t make a noise or move a muscle. Couldn’t have if he’d tried. But Derek’s eyes were a brand on the side of his face.

At first it seemed that Derek might stop there. Everyone who knew him knew he wasn’t much for words, and Stiles had long since gotten in the habit of reading his body language. It seemed that Derek was missing that message tonight though. “You might not believe it yet, but you will. No matter what anyone else has to say about it. When someone else takes advantage of you when you’re vulnerable, it’s on them, not you. And it’s also on the rest of us who know you, and didn’t see it happening. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” And then he pressed gauze to Stiles’ new wound, which was winding down its blood flow.

Stiles met Derek’s eyes in that moment. He still didn’t say anything, but he noticed those eyes. They were kind. Kind and empathetic. “Someone went to therapy.” Stiles rasped without heat.

Derek made that mouth movement that was his equivalent to a shrug, and a small smile affixed itself to Stiles’ face.

“Maybe I could use a reference?”

And now it was Derek’s turn to smile.

A less familiar voice called from the direction of the hospital doors. “Mr. Stilinski?” Stiles looked over. It was one of the night nurses. “Your father is out of surgery.”

Derek stood and steadied Stiles when he stumbled up. “I doubt you want me in there, but visit when you can. Peter wants to talk to you too, and with how much he helped with getting you back it might be worth seeing why.”

“Fine.” Stiles shrugged off the hand. “Thanks, Derek.”

When Stiles got back to the entrance, Derek was still there, watching him. Stiles paused a last moment before going back inside. He really did need to see his father.

* * *

Stiles did eventually end up leaving the hospital without his dad. Melissa had forced the matter after her morning shift, telling him in no uncertain words that he was going to take a shower and sleep before she was going to let him back there. Stiles might not have listened to her except that he remembered the long line of people saying the same things when his Mom was in the hospital. He still didn’t want to become his Dad.

He stripped off his outer layers and froze, pushing away the immediate urge to put them all back on. It was one thing to know that he was wearing new skin, and another to see that every single mark and scar from longer than a couple days ago were gone. Everything from Peter’s claws on his arm to a long-healed gash on his leg from when he’d fallen on sharp roots in the forest as a six year old that had left a long red mark. It was like his entire history had been erased. Everything from the jokes he’d made about the scar on his leg ruining his chances of being a male model, to his proof to himself that werewolves were real.

And it was as if history had been rewritten on the empty pages. That was to say that there were new marks, or, rather, Marks. Stiles Stilinski was part of the 15% of the population that didn’t have soulmarks. Or at least he had been.

His first instinctual thought was for how difficult it would be to alter all the records of his null status, and then his higher thinking kicked in. No one had to know about this. In fact, it would probably be rather simple to hide it. The mark wasn’t on a particularly exposed portion of his anatomy, even if it was large and splayed across his torso. Any shirt would hide it as long as it didn’t ride up too far and wasn’t too sheer. And he already wore layers.

His shower was as short as he could manage, with plastic tied over his bandaged wound. Still, he was tense enough to strain something until everything was covered again. He should pass out for a few hours—Melissa promised to take him back at the start of her next shift, no sooner, and made sure the other nurses knew it. But instead he was fiddling with the dart Argent had thrown into him earlier.

He was pretty sure it was made out of mountain ash, which meant that Argent figured he might still be some kind of supernatural creature. He wasn’t sure if it scared him more to be a ‘normal human’ again, if it had no effect on him, or for it to not have had the expected effect on kitsunes and for him to still be housing the nogitsune. He wasn’t sure how much Argent knew about hunting non-weres, but he didn’t think Kira had noticed mountain ash near as much as Scott ever had.

Maybe it was morbid to keep it, but Stiles used a tool he nicked from the garage to make a hole in it long enough to string it on a pendant. The worst that happened was nothing, so doing it seemed like a win-win scenario.

Sleep came in bits and starts. Or at least it felt like it. There were flashes of not-quite memory, something that came with more of an emotional sense than a visual one. It took him far too long to realize that these flashes came between snippets of nightmare. It was extremely disorientating, to switch from emotional detachment to bone-deep terror and back again.

He wasn’t quite sure he’d been sleeping until he properly woke up in the wee hours of the morning, and promptly decided not to try to go back to sleep. Ten fingers was good. He never wanted to feel like that again. Tip toeing across the carpet, Stiles made for the bathroom instead. The water was cool against his cheeks, the opposite of tears.

“Not cool,” he muttered to his mirror reflection. “Melissa won’t take me back to the hospital if you don’t sleep, and then where will we be?”

His reflection stared back at him, and Stiles sighed and stumbled his way back to bed. Resting didn’t feel right, but with his mind curiously blank he’d ended up just staring at his ceiling for a couple of hours before giving all of it up as a bad job and going back to researching what he could find on mind magics and mental protection. Weeding through useless google results about Harry Potter fanfiction and Superwholock was entirely not what he needed at the moment.

He did admit, when pressed, that he felt slightly more put together than he had the night before, even as antsy as he was to get a status update on his dad. Then again, Melissa would have been called if something had gone terribly wrong with him, and she wouldn’t have kept it from him.

On their way in, he noticed more people giving him strange looks and flinching away. He supposed he couldn’t blame them—it wasn’t like they were going around telling everyone that his body had been hijacked by an old malicious Japanese fox spirit. He really didn’t want to go back to Eichen House anytime soon. He was still going to have to do something about it though. He touched his new pendant through the top layer of his shirts, and breathed out the fear of their hatred with a sigh.

Melissa dropped him off in a room in a part of the hospital usually filled with recovering surgery patients. His father’s face was slack with sleep, and pinched with pain despite the drip Stiles could see. He checked the notes left at his bedside before deciding to depress the dispenser. The sheriff’s brow smoothed, and Stiles turned towards the sparknotes for the book he was supposed to be reading. He didn’t really have time for _Macbeth_.

His dad didn’t wake up in the six hours Stiles lasted before falling asleep as well.

Out, out, damned spot indeed.

* * *

Stiles’s skin felt wrong around this body. These bones no longer ached ahead of the rain the dark clouds forecasted, and Stiles ended up setting down the bottle of painkillers without taking any, for once. Why _this_ was halfway to setting off an anxiety attack, he wasn’t sure. And then he realized he was close to an anxiety attack, and grabbed Argent’s dart to ground him while he tried to breathe. It took a few minutes, his hand cramping painfully as the time passed, but eventually Stiles thought he’d staved off the worst of it.

“Mountain ash? Really?”

At least Peter had had the sense to wait until Stiles had calmed a little, although he still earned the responding glare. “Taking stalking lessons from Derek?”

Peter rolled his eyes and stepped into Stiles’s bedroom. “Oh, please. Where do you think he learned how to go unseen when he wanted to? Laura had the subtlety of a bird in spring, and Natalie was only better when she felt like it.”

“Natalie?”

“One of the other children, my brother’s daughter. Also dead in the fire, of course. None of his family made it out.” Peter shrugged like it didn’t matter, fidgeting with his gloves, but Stiles caught the tension lurking in his frame and let it pass.

“Why are you here?” The question didn’t have quite the bite he wanted it to, and just sounded tired. By whatever god was out there, he was _so tired_ all of the time.

“I don’t particularly care to return to the hospital, even for a visit. Too many doctors wanting to study a “miracle patient” for my comfort. I can’t let them know that I’m a picture of health, now can I, when I don’t even have a plastic surgeon to vouch for me?”

“You don’t? But weres heal so fast, you’ve got to have someone who can claim it. They could probably even claim that they chose their clients carefully.”

A shrug. “If there is, I don’t know them.”

Stiles felt himself wake up further with the thought of researching the matter, before realizing that Peter had pushed him down a rabbit hole into the wrong part of his statement. He caught Peter’s eyes properly. “So, why did you help me? You have to have gotten something out of it.”

Peter’s eyes flashed supernaturally blue for a moment, before fading to his regular eyes. “Didn’t I? Don’t you feel grateful for being alive, and not possessed? You owe me for this, and one day I intend to collect.” Peter straddled Stiles’ desk chair with a smirk. “You’re interesting, Stiles. Maybe someday you’ll even be useful.”

“I’m useful!”

A raised eyebrow. “Are you?”

A burst of anger seared the backs of Stiles’ retinas, white hot and unfocused, before it fell behind a new thought. Peter was trying to make him angry, and wanted him to react. Following that rat’s tail to its natural conclusion, Peter thought he could push and mold Stiles by tearing him down and building him up when he was weak and alone. But Stiles did owe him for saving his bacon, and reacting like he’d seen through it all would only make Peter defensive, so Stiles elected to ignore it.

And had to look away when he realized where his thoughts had gone. He’d never been good at people, so why—

Peter pulled his hand open during his distraction. Stiles would have said something, but that was when he noticed the burn on his hand around the mountain ash dart. Out of habit, Stiles looked up at Peter, who hadn’t torn his eyes away from the burn. He reached out to the dart, but was easily repelled by the thing.

“You should look into that,” Peter said, and then he was gone as quickly as he came. The only reason Stiles knew this wasn’t another weird dream was the spinning of his desk chair. He took off the pendant and tried to go back to sleep.

It was unsurprisingly hard in coming.

* * *

Stiles made a point of looking at the mostly-healed wound on his shoulder for once. He hadn’t cared to before, but if this was going to be the start of this new body’s story, then he figured he ought to face up to it. That, and he really didn’t want to get infected with one of the hospital superbugs because he hadn’t bandaged it well enough. That had been quite the unnecessary research binge to go on while his dad was still in the hospital.

And then he stopped, and pulled up his shirt. There was a single shining moment when he wondered if his new soulmark had migrated somehow, but nope, it was still there. He had _two_ soulmates. And the second one was either Chris Argent or Derek Hale.

Which….was something he was going to process later, he realized, staring at his alarm as it went off. That one meant he had about ten minutes until Melissa got there, and he spent them flailing his way into clean clothing and scrambling enough eggs to offer to her as well on their way to the hospital. She refused them, saying that she’d already eaten, and Stiles noted that that was probably for the best. He had no memory of making them and it was just as likely he forgot what he was doing and added something strange. It wouldn’t be the first time.

His father was napping when Melissa deposited him in the room, and Stiles breathed a quiet sigh of relief before taking off his plaid and pushing back his undershirt so he could see his bicep. The mark was small, no thicker than a fingerbreadth, fitting neatly over the original wound. He hadn’t been able to see it until his skin had healed enough for anything to be visible over it. If collagen formation permanently screwed with soulmarks, he’d have been screwed.

He scrutinized the active bluish marking that was emerging from under the bruising until his father started to stir, at which point he hastily re-covered the thing. His shirts were back on by the time the Sheriff’s eyes had gotten around to fluttering open, and he was absorbed in a magazine hastily plucked off the side desk by the time those eyes focused.

It was a _Highlights_ kid’s magazine that Stiles was holding upside down. The Sheriff coughed through a smile. Some things never changed.

“I don’t suppose you have bacon in the house for when I get back?”

Stiles frowned, immediately easing up on the magazine. “So you’re going to take all the right time off of the force, right?”

“Stiles—” the sheriff groaned. “You know we’re going to be short staffed after all of this. If we’re lucky, the worst will be calling in other towns for support. If we’re not, we get the alphabet agencies mucking in. Rafe McCall is going to be first on the list, too.”

“No bacon then,” Stiles agreed easily, looking down at knotted fingers. He couldn’t fight back so much when it was partially his fault his dad had to go in, but this was still protecting him and therefore justifiable.

The sheriff sighed for the sake of appearances but stopped arguing. Stiles didn’t press there, knowing that there was nothing further to be gained. He noticed that his father didn’t touch him, even to comfort him. Too soon, maybe. “Can you at least get something from the cafeteria? I haven’t had anything since noon.”

Stiles wagged a finger at him using his good hand. “Fine. Don’t move, and if the nurses sneak you anything I will find out.” He walked out of the room, feeling his father’s smile on his back. His own dropped as soon as it wouldn’t make his father worry, and he slipped by the first empty call station he saw to steal a small roll of bandages. Casually sticking it into a pocket, he strolled over to the nearest bathroom, and locked himself in. He tried taking off the covering he’d put on his hand, only to find the burn gone. No, not gone…healed. There were a couple small marks left to show it had been there, but they looked days old, at least. Supernatural healing.

On a stray thought, Stiles grabbed at the dart. This time it didn’t react when he touched it. Frowning, he pulled the pendant back over his head, tucking it between his layers. That was something else he was going to have to deal with.

The cafeteria was mostly empty, since it was still too early for the dinner rush. Chicken and rice looked like his best choice, so he got two portions of them, loading a second Styrofoam container with salad, and grabbing paper plates and a pair of vitamin waters. The cashier waved him by with a smile, well used to his face, and he made his way back to the room. Leanne, a nurse he’d known since he was eight, was walking out just as he got back. He traded a tired smile with her as she held the door for him.

Dinner was quiet, and Stiles left the hospital as soon as he could without it being suspicious. It helped that Deputy Penby, who had been out monitoring traffic when the station had been attacked, had brought over a list of officer transfer paperwork. It was fairly short, since he doubted there were many applications, but still enough to take some time.

It was also a stark reminder that his dad should be doing this at the station, and wasn’t. He wasn’t sure if the fact that his dad was about ready to go home was helping or hurting that. 

Sitting in his car, Stiles tried to consider his own options. Supernatural healing. It was hard to push back the creeping what-if, if the nogitsune hadn’t been killed and left something in him to do it all over again. Or, if Scott biting him had changed him into a werewolf, but not quite, like Jackson hadn’t been a werewolf. Either way though, shouldn’t he mountain ash be affecting him properly? He fiddled with it again. Or maybe that was just for when he was doing whatever it was that this did. Which he clearly wasn’t doing right then.

That left his other problem. Chris Argent was about the last person he wanted to see, and he assumed that that sentiment was mutual, so his efforts would be better put to tracking down Derek. What he’d do when he found him was still up for debate.

He set out for the loft the next morning, only to find it empty. It didn’t take long to ascertain that it was I’ve-moved empty and not I-was-kidnapped-please-save-me-Stiles empty. Not that Derek had kept many things, but the fridge was empty and Stiles had spent enough time feeding Scott to know what werewolf metabolism was like.

Probably for the best, for all that the loft was a step up from living in the burnt out husk of your childhood home, if it didn’t mean that Stiles didn’t a clue where he was.

But…didn’t he? Stiles pushed back his frustration and thought it through. He’d seen Derek with Argent, but he doubted that that group would last for long without a threat like the nogitsune, not between Argent’s grief and guilt, and Derek’s guilt and pack instinct. There weren’t many people Derek could seek out for the latter, and with Scott and Isaac’s likely mental states, it wasn’t them.

That left Peter.

And where was Peter?

* * *

It had happened so fast. He hadn’t really known the realities of the line Argent had them feeding the police until it was turned back against him. At the time, it had felt meaningless, because of course they knew what happened. But now—one moment, Stiles was digging through his pocket for the keys to the Jeep, and the next the Jeep had a him-sized dent in the side, and someone was pinning him to the gravel. A werewolf, by the growling.

Stiles felt himself reacting before he could think about it. His hands—something was wrong with his hands, beyond being scraped to hell. He had a passing thought about how it wouldn’t take his new body nearly as long to develop scars as his old one when he heard the roar of a second were, and the pressure on top of him was gone. Turning to look, that was—Derek, fighting _Scott?_

Stiles froze halfway through standing up as he took in the fact that Scott had just tried to hurt him. It made sense, of course it did. He’d killed Allison, so Scott was going to kill him. With their relative states, Stiles didn’t have a prayer of standing up against him. Or against Isaac, who tried tackling him from the side.

An arm caught him around the middle and yanked him out of Isaac’s way, and Stiles looked up to see Peter. Isaac and Peter stared at each other, half-shifted, before Peter growled in his face, and Isaac whined, slashing with his claws. Peter parried the blow and sliced open Isaac’s stomach in what looked like a nasty blow. Enough to kill a human, though not a were with functioning healing.

Isaac stayed down, and whatever was going on with Stiles’ hands disappeared. The world sped up and the rational-ish state that he’d been existing in fell away. He stumbled back from Peter, only noticing afterwards that his shirt had ridden up in his fall, and Peter had gripped him around his skin. A problem for later, he pulled it back down.

Not far away, Derek was taking more blows from Scott than he strictly needed to, but Scott didn’t really know how to fight and he was still outmaneuvering him. Someone was going to have to teach him healthier ways to deal with guilt, that detachedness observed in the back of his skull, and the thing with his hands happened again. He looked down, and they were—sparking?

The sparks had died down by the time he heard the wet gasp, followed by the alpha howl. He tensed, but Scott was down, like Isaac, and Derek was howling, eyes red. Scott’s eyes flashed once more before he shifted back to human. They were blue.

Peter chuckled, and Stiles switched his gaze to him.

“Hello, Stiles. You were looking for us?”

Stiles met his eyes and nodded shakily, words for once not at hand. He could barely remember what he’d come for. He felt a hand close around his shoulder, and he looked up to see Derek.

Neither Scott nor Isaac got up before Derek had pushed Stiles into the backseat of his car. Peter took shotgun, eyeing him through the mirror.

The house they took him to was an actual house not more than ten minutes from city center, as it were. The outside was a light grey brick, probably just as solid as the wards that Stiles could feel pressing in on him two steps inside the property. He lasted as long as it took for them to get him to a couch, and then he passed out. He’d process it all once he woke up.

* * *

Stiles woke up abruptly to the knowledge that he wasn’t in his own bed. He cracked his eyes, only to see that the light was fading outside. He’d clearly been out for hours. Sitting up the rest of the way, he took stock of his surroundings. Over the half-wall, he could see Peter sitting at the kitchen table, back facing Stiles. A sentiment washed over him, and away, as he noted that Derek was somewhere else. Upstairs, maybe?

“Took you long enough.” Peter had turned around while Stiles was distracted, and his eyes snapped to the raised eyebrow.

Stiles nearly quipped back about it not taking him six years, but he bit it back. He was trying to be better than burning someone like that right after they’d helped him.

Something must have shown on Stiles’ face, because Peter’s became slightly less edged as he gestured to the coffee pot. “You’re welcome to that, it might even still be warm.”

“Thanks.” Stiles pushed himself up, bones creaking like an orchestra of soreness. He took a mug from the open shelf of them and poured in the coffee, and some milk. Lukewarm, he could do. He sipped, eyeing Peter. “What happened? It’s all kind of blurry.”

Peter picked up something from a pile on the table, and held it out towards Stiles.

It was a photograph, he realized. One of a supernatural, clearly, by the glare. “Who is it?”

Peter raised an eyebrow again, and Stiles took a closer look. It was _him._

“Is that the nogitsune?”

“Stiles,” Peter chided. “And here I thought you were the smart one.”

No, his heart pounded. That was _him._ The mountain ash dart burned against his chest, and he yanked it out by the chain. He was becoming supernatural.

“Ah, your eyes are even prettier now. You’ll be quite a powerful kitsune, I expect, with time. Pity it’s not wolf.”

And---nope. Stiles blue screened and stumbled backwards, like the picture was a mountain ash pike that Peter was going to stab him with. “Nope,” he repeated out loud, and kept stepping back until he was in the hallway. Derek, when he looked, was by the front door, looking concerned. Double nope. Stiles dove for the bathroom, which at least had a lock on the door. No way was he going to deal with this now.

He sat on the toilet, head between his knees, breathing like he’d learned in therapy a lifetime ago. He’d only made it to two sessions before his father lost himself too much in the bottle to remember them, but he had learned a few skills.

He heard Derek and Peter talking outside awhile, but they seemed to respect the closed door, or at least didn’t want to cause damage to their own property. He had a growing awareness that said that they were right, that he really wasn’t human anymore. And a growing anger that that alone was enough for Scott to condemn him, even if he hadn’t done anything bad with it, even if he hadn’t even _known_.

He also knew he was going to get out of this house. The bathroom had a small window. He pushed the glass open, and pulled down the mesh before taking a look down. It was a second floor window—he could probably handle it. The grass looked plush if not, and he figured he could heal a broken ankle in less then six weeks if he got unlucky. So he jumped—and landed in a tangle of limbs, all thankfully intact because he did remember to roll.

“You’re not very coordinated,” Derek observed.

Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin. “When did you get here?”

“Heard you opening the window. I thought you might prefer me to Peter.”

“Creepy,” Stiles replied without heat. Despite sleeping for hours, he was still bone tired. The process of becoming supernatural, maybe. Scott had been erratic for days only, but kitsune were usually born…

Derek raised an eyebrow, and Stiles sighed. “Fine. What do you want?”

“You’re going to need training. We can help with that.”

“So, throwing me around like Erica, Boyd, and Isaac in the depot?”

“No.”

A few moments passed before Stiles realized that Derek wasn’t saying anything else. “No? What’ll it be then?”

“You’ll find out.” A smile washed over his face for an instant. “I’ll drive you back to your car, if you come back tomorrow.”

“And Peter?”

“He’ll probably watch.”

Stiles hummed, and looked back up at the bathroom window. It was shut, with the mesh already in. “So Peter’s a voyeur. Fine. And you too Peter. See you tomorrow.”

* * *

Scott and Isaac were gone when Stiles actually managed to get into his car. He sincerely considered not going home for a moment—if Scott had really gone around the bend enough to try to kill him again, it was the first place he’d look for him—but not even the Argents had managed to drive him away. He spent the ride there refusing to interrogate his feelings about what Scott had done.

His father was out when he got there, probably at the station, but something seemed off. Stiles drove past and kept on moving. It was only starting to be evening now, somehow. It felt like it had been a week since he’d set out for the loft. Figuring public was safer than dragging whoever back to the Hales, he parked in the diner lot and headed inside. He’d have needed to eat anyway, and he was feeling shaky enough that spending the money was worth not having to cook.

No one approached him as he lingered over his meal, charging his phone on his portable charger and paging through his messages. Nothing from Scott, so he bit his lip and considered what he could send. “Hey” was too casual for someone who’d tried to kill him, even his best friend, but anything more serious was too strange as well.

Then his hands slipped. “Hey dude what the fucj” it was, then.

He nodded off over the table, and didn’t wake up until Rosie tapped his shoulder to wake him up at closing. He managed a smile for her, assured her that he was safe to drive, settled his bill and stumbled into the night air. He made it home without eyes on him that he could notice, and figured that that was good enough for now.

He didn’t sleep well, but he was hardly expecting to. If Derek noticed the next morning, he didn’t say anything except to push more coffee into Stiles’ hands. Hot this time, with milk. He could see Peter’s hand in this, even if he hadn’t shown his face.

Training was simple enough but grueling. At this point it was mostly conditioning. You might have super strength or speed, Stiles was told repeatedly, but it worked as a multiplier on what you could already handle, not adding a new base score onto your own. Which meant, apparently, that Stiles was spending his day alternately stretching and being chased through the Preserve, up trees and down ravines and through bushes.

Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that his clothes got trashed. That didn’t mean that he was ready to have his soulmarks on display where he could see them, let alone anyone else. Let alone one of his potential soulmates.

Derek waited until they had taken a water break to say anything. “Did you tell them about the supernatural?”

Stiles just sighed.

“It’s not Scott, is it?”

That one earned him a grimace and a shake of the head.

“If you haven’t told them, then you should. It looks like they’re active, so whoever they’re connected to will be in danger now.”

“They’re aware of the supernatural, not that I thought _you_ would tell me to tell anyone else. Do you have a spare shirt I can borrow?”

Derek’s face furrowed for a moment, eyes catching on the mark that might have been his, and it took a monumental effort for Stiles to not reflexively cover it up. “It’ll just get ruined if you do.”

Stiles cast his gaze down. He knew it, but…“Please?”

Not fifteen seconds later, someone had thrown a shirt at his head. When Stiles untangled from it, all evidence of Peter was gone, excepting the shirt and the look on Derek’s face. The short sleeves did not properly cover the mark on his arm when he moved, but at least the stomach one wasn’t there anymore.

“You ready for some more?”

“Fine.”

* * *

Peter was at the table when they broke for dinner. Stiles so many kinds of tired, exhausted, bushed, and beat that he was on the verge of coming up with new words to describe how he was feeling. On the bright side, the shirt had survived, even if it was somewhat stained. He’d been shoved into their shower, with more clothes waiting for him once he got out. The size difference between him and Peter was enough that the wide neck would slip off a shoulder if he weren’t careful, but it was clean and warm and better than looking at his skin.

Dinner itself was a pot roast that tasted like it had had several hours of loving care. It was possibly the best thing Stiles had tasted in his entire life, and when he said so Peter preened. Derek looked pleased too, glancing between Peter and Stiles.

The rest of the meal proceeded in much the same fashion. The food was good, and Stiles found himself relaxing. Derek was too, if the way he was sliding into werewolf body language was any sign. It was always fascinating to watch, and even if Derek was at least pretending not to notice him, Peter was projecting his amusement.

It was surprisingly easy to push aside his history with Peter with a couple of shirts, a good meal, and some signs of humanity. The soulmark on his stomach buzzed in agreement. As if on cue, Peter’s face changed. Derek’s too, once he noticed Peter, and Stiles knew that their easy dinner had come to an end.

“Do we have to do this now?”

Peter and Derek shared a speaking look before Peter picked up the conversation. “Better to air out all our dirty laundry before it molds worse, don’t you think?”

Stiles grimaced, pulling at the edges of Peter’s shirt, but didn’t say anything.

“My soulmarks came back different after the resurrection, you know. I only had the one before, and it wasn’t to Derek, or you. And that boy gives out his soul too easily, he’s covered in them. I’ll bet that one on your arm was his too. So if you’re looking for someone to sweep you off your feet tomorrow, you’d better go back to Miss Martin.”

“I don’t—” Stiles stuttered, and shook his head. “I’m not.” He resolutely did not mention the way he sometimes got off thinking of them, but he was pretty sure they both had already smelled it on him and were ignoring it. They had visited his room before, and had to know what they were getting into with him Besides, attraction solely does not a stable relationship make.

“Good boy. We will be keeping you around, however.”

“Keeping me?”

“You thought you had a choice in that? Besides, you should see the benefits of protection from fickle friends. Pack isn’t like that.”

“And I’m Pack?”

Derek growled so deeply that Stiles thought for a moment that he’d beta shifted. Peter laughed, and Stiles, for once, relaxed.

“Let me see?” Derek asked, quieter.

Stiles bit his lip and considered just pulling up the sleeve, but then he saw Peter’s intent gaze. The shirt came off, and Stiles tensed, not looking down at the exposed skin. Maybe he could learn to like it if Peter and Derek kept looking at him like that maybe he could learn to live with it. Peter touched the mark on his stomach, much gentler than Stiles would have thought. It was definitely Peter’s mark. He bared his shoulder to Derek, and gave him a look.

Derek reached out a trembling hand to touch Stiles’ shoulder, and that mark sang just as brightly.

“Told you they already knew about the supernatural,” Stiles quipped. “Or we’d have bigger problems.”

* * *

The rest of the summer passed in a montage of training with the Hales, avoiding Scott and Isaac, and learning how to keep living with himself.

Scott, at least, had decided to avoid him back. It hurt when his father brought it up to him, and he doubted his excuses sounded like anything else, but to his credit his father had slowly nodded and let it go. At the very least, there were no more attempts on him.

As for the rest, he was glad to have the space to learn it. Thanks to the Hale bestiary, Stiles didn’t need to go back to the Yukimuras to confirm what kind of kitsune he was embodying, and that it was not yako as the nogitsune had been. Learning that had taken a great load off of his back. There was a lot that it couldn’t tell him about what he’d become, but it did help enough for him to be able to recognize it and not let it control him, not that it was trying to.

The last bit was the most comforting, when all was said and done. When he slipped into the headspace that came along with the kitsune, he found himself thinking about the world about 45 degrees to the left. He was used to seeing people as ‘his’ in some ways—his to care for, his to protect. But in that space, while Stiles was readily able to acknowledge the depth of his relationships, he was also able to examine what his life had become outside of just the hurt he associated with Scott and the bemused affection he’d developed for the Hales.

Being able to look at what had happened like that was one of the things that helped Stiles deal with his emotions for Scott the most. He’d had some space from him during the summer. He was pretty sure that Peter or Derek had approached him with threats at some point, because Stiles had largely lost the feeling of being watched in his own home less than two weeks after the fight. He was still hurt, and Scott had betrayed the trust Stiles had long since entrusted to him so he was justified in it. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to lose Scott forever because he was grieving in the worst way. If anything, it felt like the time he’d need a support system the most.

It was that thought that led him to setting down his lunch across the table from Scott and Isaac on their first day back. Or just Scott. Isaac froze, seeing him, and was shooed away easily enough.

Stiles and Scott stared into each other’s eyes for a good thirty seconds before Stiles turned away. “I don’t really forgive you, you know. I know why you did it, and Allison, but I didn’t deserve that from you.”

Scott deflated, pulling out the kicked puppy look easily enough.

“So, are you going to try to make it up to me?”

Scott sat back up, eyes wide. “Dude!”

Stiles held his gaze. “I still don’t forgive you, so don’t look at me like that. You would have killed me, and patted yourself on the back for it. I’ve been here for you for a long time, and you weren’t there for me. If you’re going to try to be my friend again, you need to do it in a way that will help me, not you. Also I’m quitting lacrosse, so there. Until you figure it out, leave me alone.”

Scott deflated, but Stiles kept up until he nodded, unconsciously baring his neck. Good. Stiles pushed back and ambled back over to where Lydia was sitting. They were both alone now, but being alone together with someone who’d have his back was better than puppy eyes.

* * *

Stiles went to the Hale house after school that day. It was technically still summer, and the sticky-hot weather reminded him of it. He stripped out of his shirt as soon as he saw that Derek was out back. His skin still didn’t entirely feel his own, but it had gotten a lot easier, and having to make the choice between shirt money and gas money had pushed him into it. Peter and Derek had also helped a lot on that score, and Stiles couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful.

Training had become simple enough now that he was in better shape. Stretching, running through the trees, and even a game of chase turned out to be more fun than he’d ever thought exercise could be. It was even better when Peter joined in, but he had his good days and his bad days, and by now Stiles had learned not to press too hard about his absences.

Derek sniffed at him. “You saw McCall today?”

“At lunch. There were a lot of other people around, pinky promise.”

“Hmmm.”

“I was fine. He tried to pull a puppy act on me, and if there’s anything real in there then I’m fine for now.”

Derek still hovered close, dragging his own sweaty hand over Stiles to mark him with his scent. Stiles allowed it, now well used to werewolfish idiosyncrasies. He couldn’t smell it at all, but he bet Scott wouldn’t want to sit too close again anytime soon.

“Did anyone bother you about the marks?” Derek reached out to touch the mark he’d left on Stiles’s shoulder. The rainbow mess of his hands made it hard for Stiles to tell what he’d left there, except in the feeling of unity when Derek touched his marked skin.

“Nope!”

“Good.”

The marks were both platonic for now. Derek was hot like burning, and Stiles had once even admitted it in his and Peter’s faces, with less burning anywhere except his own cheeks, but with his highly legitimate hangups Stiles was waiting until he was at least legal to bring up anything else. As for Peter… Well. Given his time in a coma, Peter had about twenty years of lived experience, which made him sort of younger than Derek even. And while Peter was also hot and had the best sense of humor of anyone Stiles knew, he also needed time to deal with what had happened: both to his family, and to them all more recently. Derek, at least, had had six years across the country to partially figure out his brainpan.

All of them needed time and space and connections to help pull them through more than they needed any kind of romance, and the mutual sentiment made it easier to swallow that. There were good days and bad days for all of them, not just Peter. Stiles sometimes found himself pulling on as many layers as he could to hide every inch of his skin, and on those days Derek or Peter would keep extra shirts to offer him. They’d changed all the incandescent lights in Stiles’ house to fluorescents, because they didn’t get nearly as hot. Stiles took showers after he got back from the hospital whenever his father had a follow up or Melissa needed something, or he’d been there for any other reason, because Peter hated the antiseptic smell. And so on. The things that weren’t easy, but were absolutely necessary for coexistence.

He kept the mountain ash dart pendant in a box though. He was thinking about giving it to his father, if he could figure out how to do so without explaining it.

And so things went on. Stiles had a pack, and people he’d learned to trust. His father had recovered, even if their relationship was still a bit rocky. He might even be getting his old friends back. And they were recovering. After everything, that was about all he could ask for.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this took so long? This story went through more ideas and versions than the entire last event week I posted for, and the Current Times being what they are, I like to think I've done my best. I hope you still like it!
> 
> Title is from Peacemaker by The Mechanisms! They're pretty cool.


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